Political Quotes

Miscellaneous

• "To be 'Orwellian' is to speak with absolute clarity." -- Frank Luntz, NPR interview, Jan. 9, 2007

• "People far abler than I have prosecuted the case against Rand, and I don't intend to rehash it here. But this tendency of her writings and her philosophy to compel people to slap concrete on the foundation of their own ideas, to build a moat around their intellectual life, to categorize the whole world into the tiny fraction who are worthy and the great horrid mass that are simply not to be listened to in any circumstance... this is the greatest failing of the woman and her teachings. There are a worse things to inspire people towards-- genocide, war, ethnic cleansing-- but still, a philosopher whose greatest contribution is a vast incuriosity is a dismal thing."  -- Freddie DeBoer (blog post)

Iraq

• "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, our allies, and against us." -- Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002
• "We know they have weapons of mass destruction. We know they have active programs. There isn't any debate about it." -- Dick Cheney September 2002
• "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberation Iraq will be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: 1. it was a cakewalk last time; 2. they've become much weaker; 3. we've become much stronger; and 4. now we're playing for keeps." -- Ken Adelman, asst. to Donald Rumsfeld, Washington Post op-ed column
• "So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. ... I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." -- George W. Bush on Osama bin Laden, Press conference, March 13, 2002
• Andrew Natsios, Bush appointed head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (the lead agency responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq), describing the Bush administration's Iraq reconstruction plan to Ted Koppel on Nightline April 23, 2003
• KOPPEL: Well, it's a, I think you'll agree, this is a much bigger project than any that's been talked about. Indeed, I understand that more money is expected to be spent on this than was spent on the entire Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.
• NATSIOS: No, no. This doesn't even compare remotely with the size of the Marshall Plan.
• KOPPEL: The Marshall Plan was $97 billion.
• NATSIOS: This is 1.7 billion.
• KOPPEL: All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?
• NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.
• KOPPEL: And we're back once again with ANDREW NATSIOS, administrator for the Agency for International Development. I want to be sure that I understood you correctly. You're saying the, the top cost for the US taxpayer will be $1.7 billion. No more than that?
• NATSIOS: For the reconstruction. And then there's 700 million in the supplemental budget for humanitarian relief, which we don't competitively bid 'cause it's charities that get that money.
• KOPPEL: I understand. But as far as reconstruction goes, the American taxpayer will not be hit for more than $1.7 billion no matter how long the process takes?
• NATSIOS: That is our plan and that is our intention. And these figures, outlandish figures I've seen, I have to say, there's a little bit of hoopla involved in this.
• KOPPEL: Explain how that works with the lowest price because I don't quite understand, they couldn't make a bid because they don't yet know what it's gonna cost, so how, are they gonna be held to a particular sum here?
• NATSIOS: Oh, sure. That is what, what we do. . .
• KOPPEL: If it's cost plus, in other words, if they come back to you in another six months or in another year and say, gee, you know, we gave you best estimate we could but here's what it ended up costing and it ended up costing double what we said it was gonna cost.
• NATSIOS: Oh, no, no, we have, that's the amount of money we have to spend. We're gonna do less if it costs more than that, because we have an appropriation, we're gonna go within the limits of the appropriation.

• "I watched the intelligence and never -- not once -- did it say 'He has WMD.'" - General Anthony Zinni
• "There is something in the tone of [Terror and Liberalism author Paul] Berman's polemic that reminds me of the quiet American in Graham Greene's novel, the man of principle who causes mayhem, without quite realizing why." -- Ian Buruma, NYRB
• "Embarking on a full-scale war to rid oneself of terrorists is analogous to hunting a hornet with a Sherman tank. When the tank knocks down the house that shelters the hornet, the creature whips into the attic of the next house." -- Norman Mailer, NYRB
• "Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as threats to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support." --Senate Intelligence Committee report 9/8/2006
• 'The CIA assessed that prior to the war, "the regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."' -- 2005 CIA analysis
• 'As recently as two weeks ago, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein "had relations with Zarqawi."' -- New York Times
• "Well, the evidence is pretty conclusive that the Iraqis have indeed harbored terrorists." -- Dick Cheney, Meet The Press, 12/9/2001
• "The main difference is that Tony Zinni has been to war, and he's been to war a lot. So he knows what it is to ask a man to lose a limb for his country" -- Richard Armitage on the difference between Zinni and Wolfowitz, Fiasco p11
• "Rumsfeld said we will not do that [discuss a post-Sadaam phase] because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war." -- Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Newport Daily Press, 9/8/2006
• "The detailed deliberate planning to finish the job in Iraq was not considered as Secretary Rumsfeld forbade military planners from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq. At one point, he threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a post-war plan." -- Major General John R.S. Batiste, 9/25/2006 Rumsfeld Hearing
• "Well, hey, listen, we've never been 'stay the course,' George ..." -- George W. Bush, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos
• "With regard to Iraq, President Bush and his top advisors have consistently substituted wishful thinking for analysis and hope for strategy." -- Peter Galbraith
• "Let me turn to the situation in Iraq. We all remember this picture from May 1. The president on the USS Lincoln on May 1; mission accomplished. Since that time, these are the rather haunting figures coming out of Iraq. We had lost 138 soldiers before May 1, and 685 wounded, injured. Since that time, since the president came on the carrier and said major combat was over, we’ve lost 158, and 856 wounded and injured. Those numbers are pretty troubling." -- Tim Russert, Meet The Press,

Terrorism

• "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism." -- L. Paul Bremer
• "All right, you've covered your ass now." -- George W. Bush, 6/20/2006, when a CIA officer traveled to his ranch to call attention to the Presidential Daily Briefing, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'
• "I don't know where he is. I repeat what I said. I truly am not concerned about him. Osama bin Laden" -- George W. Bush, May 2002 press conference
• "Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of these exaggerations." -- George W. Bush, presidential debate Oct. 13, 2004

On George W. Bush

• "I think Mr Bush faces a singular problem, best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology. The president ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress. And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge . . . There will be no legacy for Mr Bush." -- William F. Buckley Jr. (quoted in  The Times 9/17/2005)
• "Anyone who has even a passing personal acquaintance of Bush 41 knows him to be, roughly speaking, the most decent, considerate, humble, and cautious man on the planet. Also, the most loving parent on earth. What a wrench it must be for him to pick up his paper every morning and read the now-daily debate about whether his son is officially the worst president in U.S. history." -- Christopher Buckley
• 'Who knew, in 2000, that “compassionate conservatism” meant bigger government, unrestricted government spending, government intrusion in personal matters, government ineptitude, and cronyism in disaster relief? Who knew, in 2000, that the only bill the president would veto, six years later, would be one on funding stem-cell research? A more accurate term for Mr. Bush’s political philosophy might be incontinent conservatism.' -- Christopher Buckley
• "President Bush has nearly upended that [Burkean] tradition, abandoning traditional realism in favour of a warped and incoherent brand of idealism. At this dangerous point in history, we must depend on the decisions of an astonishingly feckless chief executive: an empty vessel filled with equal parts Rove and Rousseau." -- Jeffrey Hart, leading conservative, speech writer for Nixon and Reagan, quoted in  The Times 9/17/2005)
• "His legacy, I'd argue, is actually quite decipherable. It includes two bungled wars, a doubling of the national debt, a ruination of America's moral high ground in the war against Islamist terror, the worst US intelligence fiasco since the Bay of Pigs, and the emergence of Iran as a regional and potentially nuclear power with control of the West's energy supplies. But the damage to America itself -- to its cultural balance and constitutional order -- is just as profound." -- Andrew Sullivan, The Times 9/17/2005

Wingnuts on Obama

"The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression."

-- Rush Limbaugh, 2 days after Obama was elected

"we have a right to know if he's a so-called friendly Muslim or one who aspires to more radical teachings."

-- Michael Savage, 2/21/2008 radio show (link)

'A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. "It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism." Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military. "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."'

Reagan

• "Let’s just disengage ourselves from the myth that Ronald Reagan never raised taxes. He did. And here are four big ones. So I hope this will clear the air for some of the groups today. In 1982, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, that rolled back about a third of his ‘81 tax cuts, raised corporate tax rates, and to a lesser extent income tax rates. Raised taxes by almost one percent of GDP, which at that time was the largest percentage in peacetime increase ever. 1982 gas tax increase, 1983 Greenspan commission raised payroll taxes…Then there was the 1984 deficit reduction tax…Then there was the Railroad Retirement Revenue Act, Consolidated Omnibus Budget of ‘85…So there were a lot of them. Just thought I’d throw that in," - Alan Simpson, reality-based conservative.